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Southwestern Historical Quarterly

duced a book that will further illuminate several areas of our variedpast. Such border radio stations as XERF, XEG, XEPN, and XELO,with their transmitters resting on Mexican soil but aimed at listenersnorth of the Rio Grande, operated with wattage far in excess of thatpermitted to stations in the United States. With a potential access tomillions of American homes, the border stations were positioned toexert an influence that lay well beyond mere diversion. And, as Fowlerand Crawford convincingly argue, their programming shaped popularattitudes in their own day and presaged the media exploitation com-mon in our own time.The X-station entrepreneurs, like goat-gland doctor J. R. Brinkleyand insurance executive Carr P. Collins, catered to American listenerswho were new to the city and fascinated with such time-saving andleisure-providing innovations as the radio, but who were neverthelessstill close to the rural roots and the folk values that sustained them. Theborder stations therefore skillfully combined folk programming withsophisticated marketing techniques and such technological innovationsas the radio transcription. The audience who listened to Cowboy SlimRinehart's ballads or the Stamps Quartet's gospel music, or who sat en-thralled while Dr. Brinkley gave his medical lectures, also faithfullyordered the baby chicks, Kolorbak hair dye, Crazy Water Crystals,prayer cloths, songbooks, and "genuine simulated" diamonds that thestations advertised. The X-stations also provided forums for the workof such evangelists as A. A. Allen and the notorious battler against De-mon Rum, Sam Morris, and they did much to transform Wilbert Lee"Pappy" O'Daniel from a flour salesman and hillbilly music empresarioto a household name and governor of the state of Texas. Apart fromtheir roles in American business, religion, and politics, the most impor-tant influence of these stations came in their dissemination and popu-larization of such grassroots musical styles as country, gospel, conjunto,and rhythm-and-blues. Transmitted by the powerful broadcasts of theX-stations, these once-localized forms found a new and receptive na-tional audience.Border Radio is a book, therefore, that can be read for both innocentdiversion and scholarly profit by readers with a wide range of interests.For Texans it should be particularly fulfilling because so many of itscharacters and central events played out their roles on Texas or neigh-boring Mexican soil. Accompanied by a recording that illustrates someof the music and merchandising heard on the stations, the book recap-tures an era that will seem both alien and familiar to most of us. It ishighly recommended.Tulane University BILL C. MALONE